The Reflection in the Wardrobe

I was nine when we moved into the old farmhouse on the edge of the marshlands. My room was at the end of a long, damp hallway, and the first thing I noticed was the enormous wardrobe that dominated one wall. It was made of dark, heavy wood, carved with strange figures that seemed to writhe in the dim light. Inside, the wardrobe had a full-length mirror, its surface rippled with age, and my parents, in their infinite wisdom, placed my bed so that when I lay down, I could see my own reflection staring back at me through the open door.

That mirror made my skin crawl. My reflection always seemed a fraction slower, a subtle lag I could never quite catch. I tried to ignore it, but it was a constant, silent observer. After a week of sleepless nights, I decided I’d had enough. I pushed all my hanging clothes to the front of the wardrobe, cramming them tight against the mirror, and slammed the door shut. I took to keeping it closed, even going so far as to shove a chair against it, but the unease never truly left me.

One night, about a month after we’d settled in, I was lying in bed, curled up and hidden beneath my thick quilts. The only light was the pale glow of the moon through my window, casting strange, elongated shadows across the floor. I was just on the edge of sleep, my breaths slow and even, when something cracked across my cheek. The impact was sharp, stinging, and it snapped my eyes wide open. I sat up, gasping, my heart hammering against my ribs. My first thought was that my mother had come in to check on me, and I’d been asleep without permission.

But the room was empty. The door was closed. And the blankets were still over my head. My mother couldn’t have moved that fast, could she? A cold dread seeped through me as I turned my gaze toward the wardrobe. The chair was no longer against it, the door was wide open, and my clothes had been shoved aside, revealing the mirror. In the moonlight, I could see it clearly—the mirror was reflecting me, but I was still under the covers. My reflection was sitting upright, staring at me with a faint, knowing smile.

I froze, my blood turning to ice. My reflection slowly raised its hand and touched the glass, pressing its palm against the surface. A soft, echoing tap followed, as if something was knocking from the other side. I scrambled out of bed, tripped over the rug, and ran to my parents’ room, banging on their door until my father swung it open, grumbling. He told me I’d had a nightmare, that the wind had probably hit the window. But I knew what I’d seen. The next morning, I convinced my father to help me move the wardrobe out of my room. We dragged it into the hallway, and I insisted we cover the mirror with an old bedsheet. He humored me, but I could see the pity in his eyes.

Things were quiet for a few days. I slept better, though I still felt a prickling sensation at the back of my neck whenever I passed the shrouded wardrobe in the hall. Then, one evening, I came home from school to find the sheet pulled away, the wardrobe back in my room, and my clothes again pushed aside. My parents denied moving it, claiming they’d been home all day and nothing had changed. I started sleeping with the lights on, but that didn’t stop the tapping.

It would start every night at 3:03 AM, a rhythmic knocking that seemed to come from inside the mirror. One night, I couldn’t take it anymore. I sat up, my heart pounding, and screamed at the wardrobe, ‘Leave me alone!’ The tapping stopped, and for a moment, there was silence. Then, in the mirror, I saw my own face, but it wasn’t mine. It was older, gaunt, with hollow eyes and a twisted grin. It opened its mouth wide, and a wet, throaty whisper slithered into the room, ‘I’m not the one trapped, child. You are.’ The reflection began to laugh, a high-pitched, chattering sound, and the mirror began to crack, spiderweb patterns spreading across the glass.

I didn’t sleep that night. I sat huddled in the corner of the room, my eyes fixed on the wardrobe, until dawn painted the sky pink. I tried to tell my parents, but they dismissed me as having an overactive imagination. My father even joked about calling an exorcist, but I saw the worry in his eyes. That afternoon, I gathered every sharp object I could find—scissors, a hammer, a kitchen knife—and I marched into my room. I stood before the mirror, my hands shaking, and I swung the hammer at the glass with all my might. The mirror shattered into a thousand pieces, and the sound was like a scream. But when I looked at the shards, they were all reflecting the room, not me. And the wardrobe was empty.

I thought I’d won. I swept up the pieces, threw them in the trash, and parked the wardrobe in the back of the garage. But that night, as I lay in bed, I heard a noise from outside my window. A soft tapping. I looked out, and there, standing on the lawn, was a figure wrapped in a tattered sheet. It raised a hand, and the sheet slipped, revealing my own face, but with that same gaunt, twisted grin. It pointed at the house, at my window, and whispered, ‘I’ll find a new mirror.’

Now, I can’t stand to be anywhere near a mirror. I’ve covered every one in the house with towels, but I still feel it watching me. And sometimes, late at night, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the window pane, and it’s a half-second too slow.